


eternity is very close.

by meltokio



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, during-trespasser angst session, fill for dwc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltokio/pseuds/meltokio
Summary: can you feel yourself slipping?





	eternity is very close.

It’s always been a whisper. A word at the edge of hearing. A secret. A song.

It’s always felt like a pull. A tug at the center of her palm; stronger, sharper when she opens it. Something deep has dwelled there for years, sated on the finest flesh.  It did not itch and burn when she fed it, flinging her hand toward the green gashes in the air, feeling the fingers of the Fade reach into her veins and draw roads between realities.

It was satisfied then, when the blood flowed and the sacrifices were plenty.

Now it practically roars.

Weaned off war, growing sickly in peace. There is nothing to banish, no more enemies to sunder. The Mark is a weapon. It is not meant to build. It was made to destroy.

And she can only expect it to do what it was made to do.

Its hunger is so great it starts to eat itself, spreading like plague across her unmarred hand. It cracks and tears at her skin, pulling and rending until all that is left of her palm is green light. It snakes up her arm to the elbow, blackens the skin around it until she must wrap her whole arm morning and night.

The glow is near blinding. The pain is unspeakable.

It reminds her in sharp ways — jagged pinches and hot, searing cuts. It was never meant for her to bear it. It knows she is not its true master. So it calls to the dead god slumbering in the Fade, draws her bodily in dreams through the brimstone cliffs and smoking shores until her legs give out and she wakes in sweat-stained sheets.

The Mark was her gift, once. The only thing that kept her from the noose or worse. Once it made her special. Once she was unstoppable.

Now it is just hungry. Always, always hungry.

When she returns to Halamshiral, its whispers turn to screams. Howling funeral dirges, bursts of pain like holding fire so sharp and sudden that she cannot keep from crying out anymore. She cannot understand the language it speaks, but she knows enough that it is furious, desperate to stay alive. It wills her to open rifts in the Winter Palace, to show these petty banns and frightened bureaucrats the power of the Herald of Andraste. It is only her own will that keeps her from tearing the Veil and killing these strangled arguments where they lay in so many throats.

_This is the Maker’s gift. This is His will made flesh. I am exalted. You should tear out your eyes in shame._

 

She is delving into the Deep Roads, shooting arrows upon arrows into bleeding bodies when she realizes she does not wield the Mark anymore. The Mark is wielding her. Its thirst calls at her rage and her weariness and her desperation. It is not satisfied with the tithes she offers it. It wants the utmost sacrifice.

 

She hears the chorus of a thousand strained cries when she steps through the eluvian for the last time. The voices of the Fade raised in reverent anguish. How many had she sent there to wilt away, driven mad by the impermanence of it all? When the Mark eats her alive, will she have to answer to their anger? Will Corypheus be there waiting, smug in his knowledge that he had been right all along? She was a mistake, incapable of controlling the Anchor.

The only time the pain subsides is after it bursts, yanking her into the air so hard her shoulder jostles in its socket and she comes crashing down to both knees. Her nose bleeds into the dead grass between her fingers. Her ears ring so loudly in absence of the sound that she almost wishes the voices would return.

Every step is a thousand paces forward and a thousand paces back. Like walking in a dream, through something at the edge of memory. People she knows and loves half-carry her between battles, worriedly shouting over her head in muffled voices. Everything feels like she’s on the other side of a looking glass, her fingertips against the surface, mouthing the words but understanding nothing.

Only Solas makes it stop. The Anchor is stilled, rebuked and shamed by its true master. She has never loved him more for taking the pain away, nor hated him more for what he’s done.

He’s given her everything. Her power. Her glory. Her life.

And now he is taking it all away.

She feels the Mark’s claws scrape and tear at the skin on her shoulder, holding onto its host until she feels nothing at all.

All she sees is Solas. Fen’Harel. False god. Liar. Deceiver. Savior. Betrayer.

_Shartan._

_Maferath._

Her tears mingle with the blood and dirt on her cheeks.

_It is done._

Someone holds her to their chest as she closes her eyes. She feels as if she’s just come up for air after two years underwater. There is a hand on her cheek, so cool and soft and so entirely there that her heart may burst.

_It is done._


End file.
